I Need Cuddles From My Bucky
by QuestionableIntentions
Summary: Baz gets sick. They go to the hospital. I project my fear of needles on to my OC's. Tony is the best big brother. (aka: "Baz never gets sick and now she's sick what the hell do we do") [OC x Bucky] [OC x Steve] Rated T for jokes so terrible, they're inappropriate. (And for the swearing and implied stuff but who's counting.) Don't expect scheduled updates.
1. Chapter 1

Bucky pressed the inside of his wrist to Baz's forehead and she pushed it away immediately.

"Leave it, Buck. I'm not sick."

"Okay, Bazzie. You just seem out of it today."

"That's probably stress. I have a pile of unfinished paperwork in my inbox."

Baz coughed a little and Bucky rolled his eyes. He knew she was sick and she knew she was sick, but they also both knew that Baz could easily beat Bucky in a fight, so Bucky elected to stop talking about it.

* * *

Baz was pacing around her brother's living room when it happened. She started to feel dizzy, so she sat down. The stack of paper in front of her blurred and she quietly dropped out of consciousness.

* * *

Tony whistled a cheerful tune as he walked into his living room. The whistling suddenly stopped when he saw Baz passed out on his couch. He hadn't been expecting a visit from his sister and she seemed to be in really bad shape.

He hurried over to her, skirting the glass coffee table's sharp corners. Tony stood in front of his sister, legs pressing her legs together so she couldn't kick him or the table, and an arm across her chest so she wouldn't hurt herself if she jolted up suddenly.

He used his free hand to shake Baz's shoulder.

"Baz. Baz! You okay?"

She didn't open her eyes, instead moaning softly and mumbling something.

"What was that?"

"I feel like shit."

Tony turned around and spoke to the still air in the room.

"JARVIS, call Bucky."

"Yes, sir."

* * *

Bucky felt his cell phone buzzing against his chest, so he pulled it out of the inner pocket of Baz's favorite one of his many leather jackets.

"Barnes."

"Hey Bucky, it's Tony. Baz is passed out on my couch and she just told me she feels like shit. She's-she's got a fever and she's shivering like no tomorrow. Get over here. Now."

Bucky snapped his phone shut (like Tony, he preferred his extremely advanced phone to look like a flip phone so no one would steal it) and ran towards Steve's apartment.

* * *

Steve and Gia both jumped when they heard the loud, frantic knocking on the door. Steve pushed himself off of his wife and pulled his shirt back on.

He looked through the peephole, smiling when he saw his best friend's familiar face. He pulled the door open and his smile dropped. Bucky looked panicked and scared.

"What's wrong, Buck?"

"I need to borrow your motorcycle. Mine's getting repaired and you were the closest-"

Steve pulled the keys out of his pocket and handed them to Bucky.

"Thanks so much, Steve. I'll update you guys as soon as I find out what exactly is going on."

Bucky had turned to run down the stairs to the garage of Steve and Gia's apartment building when Steve reached out and grabbed his shoulder.

"Slow down, Buck. What's wrong?"

"Something's wrong with Baz. I gotta go."

Steve let him go that time, and Bucky ran down the stairs to get Steve's bike.

* * *

Stark Tower was on the other side of the city, and Bucky broke just about every traffic law there was trying to get there. He ran several red lights and ignored the speed limit entirely, knowing he'd get fined for it later but not caring.

He parked sloppily, then raced up the stairs. The long, slow elevator ride would have driven him crazy.

Bursting through the door at the top of the stairs, he scanned the room for Baz until his eyes landed on her. She was still knocked out and she didn't look like she was sleeping peacefully.

"You okay?"

Bucky jumped when Tony addressed him from the other doorway.

"I'm fine. How's Baz?"

"She's running a pretty high fever. And she admitted to feeling like shit. She's pretty bad."

"Shouldn't we get her to a hospital?"

"I called an ambulance right after I called you. You drive like a fucking maniac, Barnes."

Bucky grinned for a second and then walked over to Baz. He flopped down on a couch that was at a right angle to the one Baz was taking up, hoping whatever she had wasn't airborne.

A few minutes passed in silence before Tony sighed and went down the hallway to his office to distract himself. He tinkered with his suit, fixing a dent from the last time he had to kick ass with it.

Then, the paramedics arrived and everything was chaos.

JARVIS alerted Tony that EMS specialists were trying to get in, and he granted them access. He watched on a screen as they carried a stretcher into the spacious elevator and waited to get to the top floor. Suit forgotten, Tony opened the door and let them in.

They efficiently picked Baz up off the couch and placed her on the stretcher, then started to carry her out to the elevator. One guy stayed behind to ask Bucky if he'd like to go with Baz in the ambulance. Tony hurried down the hall and practically materialized in the doorway.

"We'll both go."

"Tony, I know you have lots of work to do. You don't have to come."

"Are-are you joking? Did you seriously just say that to me? This is my sister we're talking about, dumbass. Of course I have to go."

"Okay guys, if you'll just come with me..."

The two men followed the paramedic down to the ground floor and into the ambulance, where they sat down, each taking one of Baz's hands.

The ride to the hospital was uneventful as far as ambulance rides go. The two men who were closest to Baz sat in the back with her in stressed, panicked silence.


	2. Chapter 2

Baz moaned and tried to open her eyes, but found that her body didn't agree with her mind about waking up. Her ears, however, seemed to be partially cooperating.

She heard shifting fabric and then the light tap of footsteps.

"Hey, baby."

Joy flooded through Baz at the familiar voice. The only external sign of this was a small twich of her lips.

"Tony, I think she's awake."

More rustling and footsteps.

"Hey there, Baz."

With considerable effort, Baz opened her eyes. Her lips curved slightly and she suddenly felt the drool on her face. She cringed internally at the thought of her big brother and boyfriend seeing her like this.

"You're in a hospital. One of the best hospitals in the country. Me and Tony are here with you. You're really drugged up right now so we don't expect you to be or act awake. I think that's all you need to know for now, so you can go back to sleep if you want to."

Baz blinked once at Bucky, then closed her eyes and sank back into black nothingness.

* * *

The second time Baz woke up, it was more like consciousness slammed into her than the cloudy half-awareness of before.

She yelled, suddenly feeling a tingling sensation through her entire body. Bucky jolted awake and rushed over to his girlfriend's side.

"Calm down, Baz. The doctor said you would feel some nerves firing weirdly as a side effect of the meds they gave you. You're fine, I'm here, Tony's here, and everything is gonna be okay."

Baz nodded, then said something Bucky didn't quite hear.

"Hmm?"

"I said, I need cuddles from my Bucky."

Bucky grinned and pulled back the thin covers. Baz scootched over for him and he tried to fit into the space she'd made. His arm and leg were hanging over the side of the bed, so they maneuvered themselves so that Bucky was lying on his back and Baz was lying on her stomach on top of him, her head over his heart.

* * *

Tony woke up to an empty chair by his side. He pushed himself up out of his chair, joints cracking. He looked around for Bucky until his eyes landed on the hospital bed. There was Baz, lying on top of the Romanian-American killing machine, both of them fast asleep.

They reminded Tony of those sickeningly cute kittens in "animal calendars" that people like Steve thought were the best thing ever.

Which reminded him...he had a call to make.

* * *

"Steve?"

"Tony! Oh my God, I've been trying to reach you for hours!"

"I was asleep," Tony said sheepishly. "Sorry."

"Oh, I didn't know. Sorry. Gia's been worried sick. How's Baz?"

"We're in the hospital. She was running a fever of about a hundred and four but they've got it down to a hundred and two. She's safe from organ failure but there's not much else they can do except let her sweat whatever she has out."

"Okay. Gia and I are coming over."

"She's barely coherent. If you want to come over here to watch her sleep, you can."

"We'll be there in half an hour. Bucky took my bike so we'll be walking."

"See you then."

* * *

Steve ran into the bathroom where Gia was leaning over the toilet, dry heaving.

"You good, honey?"

"Yeah, Stevie. I'm good."

"When I told Tony you were worried sick, it wasn't supposed to mean literally."

"I know, babe. I'm fine."

"You're not. We'll get you checked out when we get to the hospital."

"Babe, no. It's too expensive for us."

"Tony'll cover it, you know he will."

"But it's _unnecessary_."

"Okay, fine. Let's just go see how Baz is doing."

* * *

The walk to the hospital was inappropriately sunny and warm, almost perfect. The only problem was the high humidity, making it just the type of weather that Baz would complain about.

Gia really needed to stop thinking about Baz, or she was gonna make herself sick again.

* * *

Gia smiled when she saw Baz and Bucky curled up together under the thin hospital sheet. Baz's face was pressed up against the cool metal of Bucky's arm while the rest of her was draped over the heater that was his chest. Her legs fell around one of his, and she just generally looked too comfortable to be sick.

Steve, however, was concernedly asking, "How's her fever?"

Tony shook his head, looking grim. "Still up at one-oh-one."

"Is Bucky at risk of catching anything?"

"Simmons says no."

"You called her?"

"Mhmm."

"Good."


	3. Chapter 3

"God, I feel awful." Baz moaned, and Tony rushed to the side of the bed. Bucky woke up underneath his girlfriend and immediately put his wrist up against her forehead.

"Well, you may _feel_ like shit, but your fever has broken."

Tony collapsed into a chair. "Thank God."

He poked Steve, who was sleeping in the chair next to his.

"Hey. Wake Gia up. Baz is coherent."

Steve groaned and twisted over in his seat. "Babe. Wake up. Baz is awake."

Gia blinked up at Steve, confused. She wasn't good at waking up suddenly.

"Gia. I said Baz is awake."

Gia nearly teleported to the side of Baz's bed, putting her hands on Baz's cheeks to feel for herself if the fever was gone.

"How are you feeling, Baz? Are you okay? Do you need anything?"

Baz waved Gia's questions away, only answering the last. "I woke up last night and the nurse gave me some ice chips. I'd kill for some of those."

As Gia pressed the call button, she realized the full extent of what Baz had said. "You woke up last night? When?"

"You guys were asleep and I didn't want to bother anyone since you all looked so soft and peaceful. So, I hit the call button and a very nice, very quiet nurse came down and gave me a whole cup of ice chips. I think the chicks here like me."

"Why didn't I wake up?" Bucky took his role of cold/warm compress very seriously and didn't want to be caught unprepared, i.e. sleeping.

"I know how not to wake you, Buck. How do you think I made you breakfast on Valentine's Day?"

Bucky was about to sarcastically reply, but an older-looking nurse walked in with a 4 oz. styrofoam cup of ice chips.

She drifted to the side of the bed that Tony and Gia weren't on and smiled at Baz. "One cup of ice chips for the young lady."

Baz took the cup and the spoon and handed them to Bucky. She shifted so she could sit up and hug the woman. "Thanks, Euphemia. Means a lot."

Euphemia grinned at Bucky. "You got lucky, young man. This is a fine young woman you've got yourself here." Bucky grinned back at her, looking far too charming for someone who spent the night in a hospital bed. Baz blew a kiss to Euphemia as she left.

Tony was very amused by the whole scene. "Well sis, aren't you a lady's...lady."

Baz nodded and took the ice chips back from Bucky. She started to crunch away at them and was about halfway through when a doctor knocked on the door.

"Come on in!"

The man's name tag said _Dr. Scott Fletcher_ and it reflected the hospital lights as he looked apologetically at Bucky.

"Mr. Barnes? I'm afraid you'll have to get out of the bed so I can check this young lady's vitals." He noticed the cup in Baz's hands. "Miss Stark, I thought you were told not to ask for any more ice chips."

Baz shrugged. "Not my fault the nurses like me. Euphemia's my favorite. She stayed up with me when I woke up in the middle of the night."

Dr. Fletcher smiled. "C'mon, Baz. I need your hand."

"Will this involve needles, Doc?"

"Two of them, unfortunately. An IV because you weren't able to keep any solid food down and a blood sample because we need to do some tests."

"Well. Shit. Gia?" Baz held her hand out.

Gia, still standing by the side of the bed, accepted Baz's hand and held it securely. Tony grabbed Bucky's arm and sat him down in a chair, then fell into the chair next to him.

Baz took a deep breath and screwed up her eyes. "Okay. I'm ready."

"Oh, I'm not doing them _right at this moment_. Just thought you should know. I need your hand to take your pulse and blood pressure." Dr. Fletcher held up a black clip that looked about the right size to fit around a finger.

Baz rolled her eyes. "Of course." She stuck out her finger and he clipped it over the tip.

* * *

"Now it's time for those needles."

"Fuck, okay." Baz provided her arm for the doctor and he cleaned a spot with an alcohol wipe.

"Already found a vein. Considering how much you seem to dislike this process, it should be relatively easy."

Gia rushed back over to hold Baz's hand. Baz gripped it tightly and closed her eyes. "Go ahead, Doc."

"Okay. Count of five: one, two, three, four-"

Baz yelped as she felt the needle slide under her skin. "You said on the count of five!"

"Oops." Baz opened her eyes just long enough to glare at him.

"Hey, Baz?"

"Yeah, Gia?"

"I know we're already in a hospital, but it would be great if you could try not to break my hand."

Baz loosened her grip. "Better?"

"Still feels like I'm helping you through labor, but I don't think I'm in danger of shattered bones anymore."

Baz smiled weakly.

"Okay, the blood sample is done." Dr. Fletcher removed the needle from Baz's arm as Baz opened her eyes.

"Thank goodness," Gia joked. "I don't think I could have survived much longer."

Baz made a face at her. "Don't go just yet. Now it's time for the needle that stays in."

Baz held out her right hand and Dr. Fletcher slowly pushed a needle into the back of it. He took the applicator away and taped the IV down. Baz looked a little sick.

"Okay, this is officially the worst."

Tony rolled his eyes as the door shut behind the doctor. "You're kidding, right? You say that in every hospital. And it's always after the needle."

Baz tried to glare at Tony, but she couldn't wipe the smile off her face. He was right, after all.

"Don't forget your phobia of hospitals in general, big bro. I know you hate recovering here."

Tony gently nudged his sister in retaliation. She was making a good effort to seem nonchalant, but he could see how small and cold she looked in the bed and how she was bunching up and smoothing out the blanket with her left hand.

"Want me to sit with you for a while so Bucky can go get something to eat? Maybe a shower?"

Baz nodded, but Bucky protested irritably.

"Buck. You're hangry. Go home and take care of yourself. Have a Snickers or something."

Bucky grumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, "You can stick a Snickers right up your _ass_ ," and stalked out the door.

Baz patted Gia's hand. "You two should leave too. Go home and get some proper sleep. They'll release me soon, I'm sure." Baz's voice cracked. She really wanted them gone.

Steve jolted awake from his dozing position at the mention of proper sleep. "I very much agree with Baz. Plus Gia and I have to go home and finish something."

Gia giggled and winked at her husband before returning her attention to Baz, who raised an eyebrow so much her eye started twitching. Gia just giggled again and Baz made a face at her.

"I don't need to hear about your sex life. Get outta here."

Gia checked Baz's temperature one more time, then left with promises to rescue Baz from the hospital food once she got back. Then she and Steve left (with possibly too much hand-to-ass contact on the way out), and the Stark siblings were left alone.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N-I regret nothing and everything at the same time.**

* * *

The few seconds of silence after the door clicked shut felt like long enough to lose it to Tony. He was comtemplating what it would be like to be crazy, full time.

Baz began to sing. Tony smiled and thought of all the times he'd walked in on her singing in the tower. She would always stop when she noticed him and whack him with the nearest available magazine.

Baz was very, very tone deaf. However, she could carry a tune decently if she'd heard the song enough times.

Tony recognized the song as Baz's favorite Disney song, the lullaby from Dumbo. She sang it to back herself away from the edge.

" _Baby mine,_  
 _don't you cry._  
 _Baby mine,_  
 _dry your eyes._  
 _Rest your head close to my heart,_  
 _never to part,_  
 _baby of mine_."

Tony put his arm around his sister. She put her head on his chest, right next to the scars from his chest reactor and the surgery to remove all the shrapnel from his heart. He began speaking to her, voice soft and low. At first he just mumbled nonsense, knowing it was the reassurance of another human that would help her.

He eventually started talking about life. He told her about every single freckle on Pepper's face, and stories of their mom and dad that he'd already told her a thousand times, and all his opinions on how to improve Bucky's arm. He expounded on the virtues of classic rock and denounced her love for punk and alternative...and then rescinded a few minutes later, admitting, "I listened to some of that playlist you made and I didn't hate it."

Baz eventually started replying to Tony's pronouncements, poking fun at his inevitable loss for words.

"It's been," she checked the clock, "four hours since Gia and Steve left. You ran out of material in four hours?"

"You...! Fine. Yeah. I did. Shut up."

"I'd appreciate some multisyllabic words if you don't mind."

"Supercalifragifuck you."

"Ooh, nice one."

They laughed a little bit, and Baz sat back up. She ran her hand through her hair, trying to brush it out.

"Whatcha doin'?"

"Fixing my hair. I can't leave here looking like a mess, they might think I'm still sick and keep me."

"Keep you?"

"Keep me," Baz said in a woo-woo voice, "foreeeeeeeveeer."

Tony chuckled at his sister's antics. "You're probably not leaving here for a while longer. That IV is still in."

Baz groaned. "Don't remind me."

She leaned back against her brother again, careful not to fluff up her hair too much. She closed her eyes and quietly slipped away to sleep, falling into a dream.

* * *

Baz was floating, suspended in blackness. Something wet dripped on to her face and she blindly swiped at it. She blinked several times, but couldn't manage to get her eyes to adjust. It was complete and total darkness.

She felt herself start to rise. Slowly at first, but the speed increased until she stopped as if she'd hit a wall. The space around her went from pure dark to blinding light.

Her eyes ached for a second as they adjusted. She saw the Avengers, unconscious or...dead. They were all covered in blood, piled on top of each other carelessly. Tony and Bucky were on top of the pile. Baz fought the force that was keeping her afloat until it disappeared abruptly and she hit the pristine white floor.

She ran towards the pile of bodies and started checking pulses. Tears started leaking from her eyes and her body shook with grief as she kept coming up with the same result: no heartbeat under her fingertips.

She pulled the bodies from the pile and laid them out in a line, until she got to the bottom.

Gia laid in the middle, with Steve and Clint on either side of her. Baz checked all their pulses out of desperation, even though she had lost hope long ago.

Her fingers brushed over the vein in Clint's neck and she almost dismissed the tiny movement as her imagination. She pressed her fingertips against his skin again, and the weak pulse there made her start sobbing. She did CPR as best she could until he woke up with a pained gasp.

"Clint! Oh, thank God."

"Baz? Where are we?"

"I don't know. You're covered in blood. What happened?"

"We were fighting...couldn't tell ya who, but we were definitely ruining _someone's_ day."

"Are you bleeding at all?"

"I...don't know." Clint lifted his arms and legs into the air. He felt his stomach and chest area. Baz helped him sit up so she could check his back.

"Ow!"

"What?"

Clint grimaced. "I think I fractured my shoulder blade."

"At least it's not broken," Baz whispered. She was badly shaken and was grateful for even this tiny bit of good news. She helped Clint take off his jacket and made a sling for him.

They stood up together, leaning on each other. Clint turned around to see his companions laying in rows on the ground, unmoving. He tried to hold himself together, but Baz wrapped her arms around his middle and he lost it.

The two stood together like that for a long time. They clung to each other, needing to make themselves believe that everything would be okay.

* * *

"Baz! Hey!"

Tony was panicking a bit. Okay, maybe more than a bit.

He'd never seen Baz cry in her sleep, not even when their parents died.

"Sis! Wake up. Please?"

Tony shook his sister's shoulder until she grabbed his wrist.

"Tony?"

"I'm here, Baz. I'm here."

"Oh my God, Tony. You're okay. Thank goodness. Oh my God."

"Are...you okay?"

Baz's shoulders started to shake with another wave of tears. "I just need a hug."

Tony pulled his sister to his chest and kissed the top of her head. "Everything's gonna be okay, sis. You're okay."


	5. Chapter 5

Baz sniffled and Tony handed her what must have been her fiftieth tissue. She closed her eyes and blew her nose.

"I think I'm okay now," she mumbled into the tissue.

"You sure? You seemed pretty messed up. Wanna...talk about it?"

"Maybe when we can go home and drink."

"That is _such_ an unhealthy coping mechanism."

"You're one to talk, bro. All the AA people know your name."

"Yeah, but there's my alcoholism, and then there's your avoiding this specific thing by getting wasted."

Baz sighed. "Fine...We can talk about it once I'm out of here."

"We can do a sibling night. We'll watch serial killer documentaries and eat ice cream."

Baz raised an eyebrow at her brother. "Since when are you such a girl?"

"Since my baby sister, the strongest damn woman I know, woke up crying and needed her brother to be a bit of a girl to help her feel better."

"Now that's what I call character development."

* * *

Bucky's return to the hospital was a relief to both Stark siblings. Tony's legs had fallen asleep from sitting in a weird position for so long and he was tired of Baz teasing him for being old. Baz was mentally exhausted and needed the support that her boyfriend provided, but she tried to hide all of that by teasing her big brother.

"Bucky! You're back!"

Bucky grinned at the girl sitting up in the bed in front of him. He sat down, taking Tony's place at her side as the aforementioned big brother went to take a walk and get some _strong_ coffee.

Baz took a deep breath. "And you _showered_. Damn."

"What?"

"You smell damn good after sitting with Tony's mechanical-grease-slash-too-much-espresso thing for so long."

Bucky chuckled and hugged his girlfriend. "Glad to see you too, you strange woman."

Baz beamed at him. "I need, like, a ten minute hug."

"That's doable."

"I really fucking love you."

* * *

Baz scrawled her signature over the line on the bottom of a form. Only a few more to go, and then she could finally check out.

Tony sauntered into the room, closing the door gently behind him. "How you doin', little sis?"

"I'm fine. Pushing paper, just like back at home."

Tony smiled. "Don't be like that. You're almost out of here. The IV is almost gone."

Baz glanced up at him, flashing her teeth. "I know. I'll be done in a few minutes and then we can leave."

"Sounds good."

"Sure as hell does."

* * *

The ride home was loud and wonderful. Baz had gotten to pick her companions, and even got first dibs on shotgun. (Because all of her friends took that whole "child at heart" thing way too seriously.)

She'd elected to place Clint there instead of taking it, sitting in between Bucky and Gia and letting Tony drive. He was going to give them all heart attacks with his speeding, but Baz felt the heart-pounding drive was an acceptable outlet for stress after her whole flu experience. According to Dr. Fletcher, her passing out had a simple cause: she'd reacted badly to the flu, even with the flu shot, and the reaction had been compounded by self-neglect.

It made sense, she wouldn't deny it, and the nightmare could be chalked up to leftover anxiety from the needles and the hospital in general. Like most of the group, she hated being cooped up inside. Hospitals made her especially anxious, although she couldn't figure out why. She'd worked as an aide at a senior home for a few years, so it wasn't the medical equipment or the other patients. She and Bruce had talked about it and he had theorized sensory overload. It was the running hypothesis.

Finally, after a thousand of Clint's dad jokes and cheesy positivity quotes, and a hundred astronomy factoids from Gia, Tony parked the car in his garage and Baz went inside to shower.

* * *

"Okay but who was worse, Ed Gein or Ted Bundy?"

Tony ate another spoonful of vanilla-caramel-chocolate ice cream. "That's a difficult one...Bundy killed more women but Gein was _definitely_ creepier. I mean, _bowls_? Made of women's _skulls_? The fuck?"

Baz tapped the handle of her spoon against her chin. "But Bundy cut some of his victims' heads off with a fucking _hacksaw_."

"Yeah and he screwed their dead bodies too, but that still doesn't beat Gein's full-body Mommy skinsuit."

"True."

"And Gein tanned their skin. And he _upholstered_ with it."

Baz shuddered. "Eeew. Gein may be super creepy, but the idea of coming across another Ted Bundy in real life is way scarier. Imagine you help a poor crippled guy put his groceries in his car and suddenly you've been hit over the head with a crowbar, strangled, and left in a forest somewhere for your murderer to come back and use your body as...ugh. Just ugh."

Tony stuck his spoon to his nose and crossed his eyes. "So anyway, tell me about this nightmare you had?"

Baz giggled, then sighed. "Fine."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Okay then. Please."

"Okay. Well. I woke up floating. Couldn't see a thing, weird unknown liquid dripped onto my face, all that jazz. Later I would discover it was blood or some other kind of bodily fluid. I don't really want to know what exactly my subconscious intended it to be, but it was wet and it was _not_ water."

Baz licked her spoon as Tony listened intently, the documentary on cults now muted.

"And so I start rising. I speed up until suddenly I hit an invisible wall-"

"Maybe it was the glass ceiling," Tony interrupted. Baz pushed him with her foot until he almost fell off the couch. He got the message and shut up.

" _Anyway_ , I blink and it goes from black to white. My eyes adjust, and...I see all of you guys. Just...in a pile. You and Bucky on top, and under you are Nat and Wade and Peter and everyone else I care about. All covered in blood...so I checked your pulses. I was desperate. Every single one...the result was always the same. Dead. All of you. The only people I care about in the whole world...dead."

"I'm...so sorry."

"Ohoho, but it gets worse." Baz wiped her eyes. "At the very bottom of the pile are Steve, Gia, and Clint. All laid out in a line. And I check each...each body for any signs of life, anything at all. When Gia was dead it nearly broke me. But Clint was last and he was alive. And that's what sent me over the fucking waterfall _in a plastic cup_. No hope of survival."

"None. Zero."

"Exactly. Straight to Hell in a handbasket. Do not pass Go, Do not collect 200 dollars."

"So what happened?"

"So I sat there and hugged Clint and he was comforting because he is everyone's dad, and I just sat there with him and we cried until you woke me up."

"That sounds fucking awful. C'mere."

Baz put her tub of chocolate marshmallow swirl ice cream down on the glass coffee table and scootched over on the couch until she was squished up against her brother's side. They sat together and just breathed, Baz reminding herself that everyone was alive and Tony telling himself this was a one-off, that Baz would be okay.


	6. Chapter 6

Baz was not going to be okay.

At least, not right away.

She still woke up sometimes and needed to silently check Bucky's breathing as he snoozed next to her.

She still needed Natasha and Gia to bring her tea and stay with her when she had panic attacks.

Clearly, that one bad dream was only the tip of the iceberg of problems.

Baz was still fighting crime through all of this, although the Avengers were between world-ending villains at the moment. She mostly took care of bomb threats, being the demo expert on the team. It was almost calming to her, being in her element. She spent a bunch of time in the Middle East, setting or diffusing bombs for one group or another. No one came with her on the trips to active warzones, except for her custom Stark-manufactured bomb suit.

She loved that suit. It used some of the same technologies as space suits; cooled with a tubing and cold water system and reinforced with Kevlar and titanium panels, it was lightweight, air conditioned, and generally much easier to work in than standard-issue Army bomb suits.

Things like that were just one of the benefits of being related to Tony Stark.

Sometimes, she called Gia in the middle of the night on these trips, whispering so no one could hear her fears. Baz's absence was rough on both of them, but Gia encouraged her to do what would help her heal.

She communicated with Bucky almost nonstop when she was away from home. The only time she ever cut their calls off was when she actually had to go out and work. They fell asleep on the phone (Bucky waited for her to fall asleep and then hung up so her phone wouldn't die). They didn't actually talk very often. They just carried their phones around with them as they went about their days, with the occasional "Sorry, dropped my keys," or "I wish you were here to smell this bacon."

Tony was less insistent on constant communication with his sister, although they sent each other daily updates (Baz was pretty sure that JARVIS sent Tony's, judging by the formal language and proper punctuation.)

He usually asked her how she was feeling, and Baz answered for both Tony's and JARVIS's sake, writing a paragraph for the AI and a TL;DR for her brother.

She would think for a bit, then include the same things as she always did: she was currently okay, but she was on edge all the time; she didn't sleep well in her unfamiliar surroundings; and she was avoiding the causes of her issues. JARVIS would send her a short reply filled with concern almost immediately, and she would tell him not to worry about her. JARVIS inevitably did, and the cycle would continue the next day.

It was a cycle that Baz began to get comfortable in. She went from going to Israel for three weeks at a time to three months at a time. She called Bucky less. She ignored more of Tony's messages. She worked in more and more dangerous situations. And her mental state went, as she put it, "over the waterfall in a plastic cup."

* * *

"Okay. This is-it's just ridiculous. I haven't heard from Baz in over a month. What do I do, Pepper? You know things about girls."

"Well, Tony, maybe you should try calling her instead of having JARVIS send her emails. She might appreciate the extra effort or, alternatively, it'll get her out of whatever rut she's driven herself into."

Tony nodded gratefully. "Thanks, Pep. You're the best."

Pepper smiled and went back to the phone call that Tony had (albeit politely and accidentally) interrupted.

Tony stepped out of her office and sighed. "JARVIS, call Baz."

"Yes, sir. Do you want me to be there too?"

"Not this time. I need to talk to her alone."

"Of course, sir."

* * *

"Baz? You there?"

"Tony. Hi."

Tony breathed a sigh of relief, glad his sister wasn't in a grave somewhere in Pakistan. "How are you doing? You've ignored like thirty of my messages."

"Noted."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "I'd appreciate some multisyllabic words if you don't mind."

"Don't quote me to me, Tony."

"But...c'mon, it's a good quote!"

Baz's exasperated sigh crackled a little on the way through the line. "It doesn't even count. 'Noted' and 'Tony' are both two syllables."

"Shush."

"If you say so."

"Anyway, I thought I would try and convince you to come home. We all miss you, sis."

"I'm not...at my best right now. Maybe it's better if I stay here."

"Well then I'm coming to visit you. This behavior isn't like you."

"No! No, don't do that."

"There's a Stark jet headed to Tel Aviv tomorrow morning whether I'm on it or not. And you're getting on it and coming home. I'm _worried_ about you, Baz."

"Tony. Please. Don't send that jet."

"Why not?"

"Because I am a _hot fucking mess_ , Anthony."

"Ooh. Bringing out the full names and everything. Fine, _Basil_."

"God, Tony, I don't want you to see me like this."

"Then I'll send Bucky."

"Not him either."

"Gia. Peter. I'll even find Wade and fucking send him if that's what it takes."

Baz put her face in her hands and Tony heard a muffled, "Fine. Send Wade and Vanessa."

"I'm not sending both. Those nymphos'll screw each other the whole way there and back and if I wanted my plane to light up under black lights, I would have used flourescent paint. It's one or the other."

"Fine. Wade. Please. He's seen me in worse states than this. Oh, and send Spider-Boy please."

"I'm not sending two fucking planes, Baz. You can't tell me you trust those two together. They'll manage to crash in an active warzone on the way over."

"Fine. Just Wade, then. And no one at the airport to meet me except Vanessa and Parker. If I see anyone else I swear I'll blow them up."

"Okay, sis. You got it. Wade'll find you tomorrow if you don't send JARVIS your location."

"Sending it now. Please leave me alone now."

"Got it. Bye, Baz."

Tony heard a quiet, "Fuck me," from the other end before the call cut off. His eyebrows furrowed as he worried about his sister, but he reminded himself that she'd be home tomorrow. Then he could fix everything.

* * *

 **A/N-Next chapter, there shall be memes.**


	7. Chapter 7

Tony wanted to make the call himself, but Pepper convinced him to let her do it. She knew that Wade would probably joke around inapprpriately, and Tony's fraying nerves couldn't take that kind of stress.

* * *

"So why am I headed to Tel Aviv again? Is it the women? The fucking Israeli army? Fucking the Israeli army?"

"No, Wade. You know why you're on that plane."

"Sure I do, Pep."

"It's Pepper to you. You're going to go find Baz and get her on that plane if you have to knock her out and tie her up to do it."

"Ooh, kinky."

Pepper sighed and thought of Peter. He'd make a joke like that too.

"I'm gonna go now, so feel free to help yourself to whatever in-flight stuff Tony left you, I guess. Don't call back until you have Baz."

"Got it, Pep. I'll get her."

Pepper appreciated the slight undercurrent of determination in Wade's joking tone, but she rolled her eyes at the cutesy nickname that she only let Tony use and dropped the landline back into its cradle. Wade and Peter's fast friendship must have been completely based on sense of humor, because while Peter was entirely respectful around all the adults he knew, he and Wade together were a recipe for disaster.

One day, they'd decided to cover an entire wall in Peter's room in the tower with stickers. It started with the princess stickers Wade inexplicably stored sheets of in his suit. The two must have made ten runs to the craft store after they used up the first package. Another time, they'd stuck a bunch of fridge magnets spelling a less-than-civil word on Bucky's metal arm. Almost everyone had gotten a good laugh out of it, except for Steve and Bruce, who both looked dismayed that Peter even knew such a word.

Pepper smiled at the good memories and crossed her fingers that Wade would bring Baz back to make some more.

* * *

 **A/N-I know, I know. I promised memes. But I felt like I had to get a chapter out, even this super-short one. School is slowly killing my soul.**

 **Always wear your eye pro.**

 **Love,**  
 **Baz**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N-I'm back, bitches!**

* * *

A pile of covers quietly shifted in the corner of a bed that took up almost a whole wall in the small hut. Baz rose from the tangle of wool and synthetic fleece with her arms stretched towards the ceiling. She made a sound that vaguely resembled one of the chickens that strutted about outside.

She gripped a makeshift pull bar that she'd installed less than a week ago and felt her muscles protest as she slowly got out of bed. Situating her feet on the floor properly, she blindly reached for her crutches and sent them toppling to the floor. Loudly. She pushed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets. Of course she would be having issues today.

Knees aching, Baz gingerly lowered herself to the floor. She brushed her hands along the packed dirt until she hit cold metal. She stood the crutches back up against the edge of the bed. It took the assistance of the pull bar and a scream of pain from her shoulders, but Baz got upright and standing on one foot. She was careful with the other foot, not letting the bulky cast touch the ground until she had the extra support of the crutches.

Silently thanking whatever higher power was listening that she was well enough to even make the journey, Baz worked her way outside to the well. She pumped out enough water to make tea and then hobbled over to a large rock placed next to a firepit. Sitting down was painful, but she managed okay. The pot of water thumped down into the middle of the small circle of rocks and Baz began to tuck tinder, kindling, and some larger sticks around it. She set the tinder aflame with a lighter covered in Hebrew lettering and nursed the fire to health.

Wade was coming today. On one of Tony's planes.

She'd have to return to civilization soon.

She was absolutely fucked.

* * *

Wade was having a great time on the private jet. Tony had provided "flight attendants" of both genders to help him pass the time, and all of them were extremely talented. And also remarkably unfazed when Wade pulled out his unicorn Pillow Pet to show it off.

"Wade?"

"Yeah, Chastity?"

"It's almost time for the flight to land. We have to go now."

Wade grinned. "Sure you can't stay just a little longer?"

"Yep." The perky blonde lifted her head off of Wade's lap and pushed her lithe body into a standing position, substantial curves on full display.

"Well, don't let me keep you. I can entertain myself just fine." A wink set the female stripper giggling. She pulled the two male strippers apart (apparently, the two were dating and couldn't get enough of each other).

Wade admired all three asses as they headed to the back end of the plane to get into street clothes before Baz arrived.

Cracking his knuckles as he got off the couch, Wade downed the rest of his ridiculously expensive martini. He stuck his head through the door to the cockpit that was ironically filled with two women. Wade found it wholly amusing that the cockpit had no dicks in it.

"So, ladies. I shouldn't be gone too long. Keep the engine warm."

The pilot simply nodded, clearly having been warned by Tony not to put up with any of Wade's shit. The copilot's knuckles whitened a little bit as she wrapped her arms around herself. She was fighting to control her shivering.

Wade ducked back out of the cockpit, brows furrowed. He searched the plane until he found his carry-on. Pulling out a plastic bag labeled "Blankie", he hurried to the front again.

"Here." He held out the fleece blanket printed with pictures of cats eating pizza to the shivering copilot. "Tony should allow sweaters to be part of your uniform or something."

She smiled up at him from her seat and took the blanket. "He does. I forgot mine back in the airport. You put something down for one second..."

Wade nodded. "Glad I could help."

His ass hit the seat just before the seatbelt light turned on.

* * *

The plane landed in Tel Aviv at 11:38 a.m. The search was on the moment Wade stepped off it.

He knew that Baz had been doing some demo work, so he checked with the Israeli army. They hadn't heard from her in two weeks, and she hadn't been into the room they'd provided in a month.

Wade had JARVIS check the reports Baz had filed, and narrowed her location down to a small village about five miles away from the city center.

"Ma'am? I'm sorry to bother you and I don't speak Hebrew. I'm looking for someone called Baz Stark."

The woman stared up at Wade's face, not understanding a word. Then, a glimmer of recognition seemed to appear in her eyes.

"Baz?" She said, withered lips struggling around the foreign name.

"Yes! Baz."

The woman pointed a scraggly finger at a hut at the opposite end of her little goat-yard-slash-chicken-coop. Wade nodded his thanks, grinning widely.

A knock sounded on Baz's door. She yelled, "I'll just be a minute," and winced at her vocal cords. They felt like they were clogged with the brown dust that pervaded everything.

"C'mon, Bazzie. Open up for your favorite Canadian anti-hero."

"I said I'm coming, asshole."

Baz struggled with her crutches, trying to force them to cooperate with her effort to get to the door.

"What's taking you so long? Are you okay?"

Baz gritted her teeth at the rising current of concern in Wade's voice.

"I'm fine."

She yanked the small door open.

"Fuck, Baz. What did you do?"

Wade was scared. He'd never seen Baz this physically screwed up.

"What, you mean my eyes? I'll have you know these bags are designer."

"Your leg..."

"Oh that. Yeah. Can we say 'nothing happened' and call it a day?"

Wade considered the offer for a moment. Baz was clearly not okay and he didn't want to push it. So he pasted a smile-that-was-not-a-smile to his face, and put out his arms for a hug.

Baz was very glad that Wade hadn't interrogated her. She was too tired. She gratefully accepted the hug, but accidentally dropped on of her crutches.

"Fuck."

"What?" Wade asked, not loosening his hold on his friend.

"Dropped my-"

"Oh yeah, I got it."

Wade swept one arm under Baz's knees and she relaxed into his chest. Then he knelt down and picked up the fallen crutch.

"Seriously, Wade. I'm fine. I can walk to the plane."

"No you can't. It's in Tel Aviv, remember? And we're five miles out."

"I walked all the way here."

"And you're not walking all the way back. Don't make me break your other leg."

Baz groaned. "God, _fine_."

* * *

 **A/N-So I know I promised you memes. But the story went in a bit of a different direction than I had intended. Don't be mad, I'm sure the memes will show up at some point.**

 **Always wear (eye) protection.**

 **Love,  
Baz**


End file.
